Open Carry: There's an App for That

It appears that we are mere days away from the Texas legislature passing an open carry law that will make it legal to carry a handgun in public...openly. It's the kind of thing that, as a Texan, makes you proud...or afraid...or embarrassed...or all of the above. Nevertheless, if our current state government could best be represented by a cartoon character, it would most certainly be Yosemite Sam.

Fortunately for all you rootin', tootin', gun shootin' folk, there's an app for that. Well, technically, that's not true. More accurately, there's a video parody for that. In a joke that feels a little too real for comfort, some wiseacres created a video for an app called iGun — this is not to be confused with the actual iGun app that is totally real but won't let you shoot anyone...in real life.

In the video, a young couple at a bus stop — and dressed extremely well for public transportation users — are threatened first by a single knife-wielding hooligan. No worries, iGun to the rescue. The phone attached to the pistol stock pulls up the app and the users chooses the handgun setting. Seconds later, the perp is splattered Tarantino-style.

Next, a pair of would-be bad guys show up. Our hero switches to the AK setting and machine guns them into oblivion. He then chooses the missile launcher and turns their truck to dust.

If it were a real app, it would be terribly impractical. It's hard enough to get out your phone, activate it and hit the Shazam app before the song in the store stops playing and you're sitting there like an idiot holding your arm up in the air trying to get the final strains of that cool new song over the din of screaming children inside Walmart...but I digress. Imagine getting your phone out, on and then choosing your ammo of choice in time to mow down some crooks. Not happening.

But bravo for the inventiveness. Maybe someday, phone apps really will launch rockets and then, Mad Max will truly go beyond Thunderdome. Until then, gun firearm enthusiasts will just have to opt for the good ol' tried and true revolver or AK for their trips to Starbucks and the mall. Why bother with cumbersome technology when cold steel and a spring-loaded trigger will do the trick? If it worked for Billy the Kid, it will work for a regular law abiding, open carrying Texan. Yee haw!

Jeff Balke is a writer, editor, photographer, tech expert and native Houstonian. He has written for a wide range of publications and co-authored the official 50th anniversary book for the Houston Rockets.